Blue Violet (22 page)

“May I?”

“Be my guest.”
He clasped his arms behind her waist, pulling her in closer.

Ellie laid her
hand on his cheek. Closing her eyes, she concentrated. There it was... that
light glowing inside Alex, a bright golden light. She could almost feel its
warmth. She pulled it inside her, under her control.

She opened her
eyes, a soft smile playing around her lips. “Wow!  So you can freeze anything
you want with your mind?”

“With a few
limitations, yes.” He frowned. “I struggled with slowing the bleeding in your
leg without blocking the blood flow that night. And apparently, holding a pack
of metamorph wolves still in mid-fight might take some more practice. And I
can’t reverse a course of events usually. Every once in a while, like when you
drove into that tree…” he gave her a hard look, “I can nudge things in a
different direction.”

“Hmmm…” she
murmured, fascinated. “Let’s see… you don’t seem to have limits of size. It
looks as though you could freeze everything on an entire mountain if you wanted
to. And you could freeze things down to tiny increments. Cells within bodies.
You could be very dangerous if you weren’t such a good person,” she teased.

“Anything
else?” He was clearly amused at her clinical assessment of his skills.

“Looking…” She
concentrated harder. “You can pick and choose what you freeze. Like the snow
and wind but not us. And…” She grimaced and snapped open her eyes. “You said
you were born shortly after the Civil War, right?”

Alex looked
vaguely confused. “Right. I’m not that much younger than you. Closing in on a
century and a half. Why?”

Ellie’s frown
deepened. “You said your grandfather taught you to use your skill. Did he spend
much time working with you on it?”

“Yes,” he
said. “My power’s pretty much an exact clone of his. We spent most evenings
practicing. How’d you know?”

“It seems like
you’ve mastered your abilities to the fullest extent of the possibilities, at
least the ones I can see…I’m impressed!”

“Is there something
strange about that?”  

Ellie rolled
her eyes. “Ego-alert, darlin’,” she drawled. “Only you would be
unimpressed
with this.”  She looked at him with loving amusement.

“You know that
when I touch Svatura, I can see the full extent of their capabilities. You’ve
seen me do it, right?  And because I’m still learning and perfecting my own
abilities, I still miss things sometimes. Or, a better way to put that is that
I still discover the uses and extent to others’ powers in stages, like they
would, but it’s speeded up a bit.”

He nodded.

“You are the
only person, and granted my experience with this is limited, but you’re the
only one ever who’s mastered the nuances by your age.”

Alex took a moment
to think about this. Looking at her with stunned eyes, he pulled a hand from
behind her back to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Shrugging casually, he
said, “What can I tell you? I’m sure it’s because of my grandfather’s
tutelage.”

Ellie felt almost
irritated by his seemingly casual acceptance of what, to her, seemed
inconceivable.

“I don’t think
you’re getting exactly what a big deal this is,” she insisted. “I haven’t even
mastered my skills yet, although I can see what the potential is. Which, by the
way, is highly frustrating for me.”

Alex looked
down into her earnest expression. Wrapping his arms around her, he gave her a
gentle hug. “I can’t explain it, baby. But maybe I’ll be able to pass it on to
our children one day.”

Ellie froze.
Everything. Her breath, her thoughts, her heart. All frozen. And not due to
Alex manipulating her. This feeling was just her reaction to his statement.
Alex pulled back and looked down into her eyes, slightly worried by her lack of
any reaction or movement.

“Children?”
she finally croaked, a little shell-shocked.

Alex nodded.
And then, with a heart-wrenchingly earnest expression he said, “I love you,
Ellie. You are my
te’sorthene.
You are the center of my life now. We can
take things slow. We have all the time in the world. But you should know all of
this.”  He watched her reaction closely, and breathed a huge sigh of relief as
she started to smile and then caught it again as that smile became so beautiful
it was breathtaking.

Her smile
turned mischievous. “I hope you’re planning on making an honest woman of me
before
the kiddos come along.”

“Mmmm… that
would be the plan,” he agreed.

Ellie looked
deep into his eyes. “I love you with everything I have in me. My life is
wherever you are from now on.”

Almost before
she’d even finished speaking, Alex’s mouth covered hers, stealing her breath.
His arms pulled her tight against the length of his body. The world melted away
in the heat of the kiss. As his tongue snaked out and touched the seam of her
lips, Ellie willingly parted them, allowing him more intimate access. Alex
released a groan as their tongues intertwined.

Suddenly he
moved, and Ellie found herself lying on a pile of soft snow, Alex’s length
covering hers. He pinned her beneath him, and Ellie reveled in the feel of his
hard body above her. Kissing his way down the column of her throat, Alex
nibbled back up to her ear, taking the lobe between his teeth and tugging
gently. Shivers of ecstasy raced through her body.

Ellie strained
to get closer as he took her mouth with his again. Alex suddenly broke off the
kiss, eliciting a whimper of protest from Ellie. Burying his face in her neck,
he lay there motionless for a time, waiting for his body to calm.

“Too much, too
soon. I know, baby. Sorry, but you are just too damn tempting, Ellie Aubrey.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes, content for now to just lie there together.

Only when
Ellie shivered from lying in the snow so long did Alex finally let her up.

“Come on.” He
tugged on her hand, leading her back home. “Let’s get you warm.”

If only he
knew how hot he’d made her already…

 “Hey…you are
planning on letting me finish high school… and maybe even college… before
marriage and kids?  Right?”

Alex shrugged
and gave her hand a small squeeze. “I guess there’s no rush while you’re in
high school,” he agreed. “Although I would like to get a ring on that finger
that scares off all those over-eager college guys. You still sure you want to
go?”

Ellie rolled
her eyes, secretly enjoying his small display of possessiveness. She knew he
was confident enough in himself and their love. “You want to finish your degree
right? Well, where you go, I go. Besides, I haven’t tried college before. I
like the idea of getting a degree. It’s only in the last century or so that
it’s become acceptable for women to receive a higher education.”

“Have you
decided on a major yet?”

“Ummm… there’s
too many to choose from. I don’t need a degree for a living like most people
since we have so much money—“

“And we have
Dexter.”

“Huh?” Ellie
tripped over her feet as she turned to look at Alex.

“He can turn
anything into metal,” he steadied her with a hand at her elbow.

“So?”

“Gold and
silver are metals… he can turn anything into gold. That’s one of the ways we
make money. Although he’s still mastering the skill.”

“Oh!” Ellie
almost slapped her forehead as a thought occurred to her.
I’ll have to talk
to Dexter later,
she thought to herself.

They paused
outside the back door, snatching one last kiss, one last moment of privacy,
before joining the chaos of their family.

Everyone else
had woken and started breakfast during their absence. As they walked into the
kitchen, Adelaide, sitting at the bar in the dining room, grinned the second
she saw them together.

They just
smiled back but didn’t say anything and knew that Adelaide wouldn’t either.
They had lots of time.

The next few
weeks fell into a pattern. In the mornings, Ellie, Adelaide, Lila, and Nate
went to school.  Evenings were reserved for training and preparing for the
coming battle. Tonight they were fighting guys against girls. Alex stood off to
the side watching.  Sometimes they took one of them out of the equation so they
could practice working together when they didn’t have all powers in play, and
it was Alex’s turn to referee. 

“Everyone have
their instructions?” Ellie asked the girls. Heads nodded in unison. “Charlotte,
you know what to do. Okay then, let’s go!” The ladies and the men all disbursed
and headed into the woods, practicing being scattered when the attack came.
Ellie thought through their plan. Charlotte was the key to gathering them all
together.

“Go!” Alex’s
voice boomed from the clearing.

Ellie
instantly transformed into the falcon and swiftly gained altitude, making sure
to block Griffin’s mind reading. She found Charlotte, who had already located
Lucy. With further inspection, Ellie located where Lila and Adelaide were in
the woods.

Silently, to
keep their location secret from the men, she dove toward Charlotte,
transforming back to human as soon as she was on the ground. In silence, she
and Lucy both held hands with Charlotte. Then Ellie tapped into Charlotte’s
power to first transport them to Adelaide, and then to Lila, and finally to the
field where Alex was waiting.

The guys were
a little slower to make it to the clearing without Charlotte’s help. But
eventually the girls were surrounded.

Nate and
Dexter lunged simultaneously. Using Lucy’s precognition, Ellie had seen it
coming, and using Charlotte’s teleportation, she had moved them out of the way,
popping back up behind where the guys stood. Nate and Dexter landed in empty
space and rolled.

With just the
girls, Ellie was limited in what she could do. She didn’t have any defensive
skills. She could keep the girls away from the guys like this indefinitely, but
she needed a way to finish things, too. So she decided to cheat a little bit. Seeing
Ramsey wind up to deliver a fireball straight at them, she tapped into
Griffin’s defensive shield. As a result, Ramsey’s fire hit an invisible wall
and was repelled straight back at where the guys stood. Ramsey immediately
doused the flame before it touched any of them.

“No fair!”
Griffin called out. “You can only use the girls’ powers.”

Ellie grinned.
She moved the girls out of Nate’s way as he tried running directly at them.

“What if the
Vyusher have a power I can tap into, since I am technically a wolf too?” she
asked.

“You wouldn’t
be able to without touching them,” Griffin insisted. Just as he finished
talking, Ellie felt the ground shift slightly beneath her feet and knew it was
his shield. She immediately transported the girls to a new spot. Just in time
too, as Griffin jerked the shield up, barely missing them.

“Nice try!”
Ellie laughed. With Griffin’s abilities out, Ellie worked another tack
–something she’d been thinking of for a few days now. She pulled on Lila’s
ability to heal emotions and decided to see if the reverse of that might be
possible. She concentrated on the dark areas in her attackers that represented
the lower emotions. Deep within that darkness, she could feel small parts of
fear and confusion. She worked on making those parts grow, specifically
confusion, though she took every care with how she let it affect Ramsey.

It worked
beautifully. Ellie grinned as all the men stopped their attack and stood
silently with increasingly bewildered expressions.

“What’s going
on with them?” Lucy asked.

“I’m using
Lila’s skill to force confusion on them.”

Lila giggled
beside her.

“I’ll
definitely have to teach you this,” Ellie whispered to her. “It’ll be a good
defense for you.”

With a
delighted laugh, Ellie let up on the guys. “I think that does it for the day,”
she announced. The boys groaned at having lost. They were sure they’d win today
since they had all the active skills. They gave in good-naturedly, though, and
together everyone headed home for some well-deserved rest and relaxation.

“Who’s down
for a game?” Nate called as they all trooped into the house. Lucy headed to the
kitchen to start dinner and Hugh to the dining room table to get some work done
while the rest of the family pulled out Trivial Pursuit. Playing games was an
almost nightly tradition.

They played
until dinner, paused to eat, and then returned to the game. It didn’t take long
for Ellie to clean house. This was her favorite game.

“Ellie Aubrey,
you cheater!” Nate pointed an accusing finger her way.  “You totally used
Griffin’s mind reading.”

“I did not!”
she responded indignantly. “You just can’t handle the fact that I kicked your
ass at Trivial Pursuit.”

“There’s no
way you knew the answer to that question.”

“I’ve been
living a lot longer than you, kiddo,” Ellie popped a piece of candy in her
mouth and grinned as she chewed, well aware that being called kiddo drove Nate
nuts.

“And besides,
we knew him,” Griffin added.

“Hold up,”
Alex froze in the process of picking up the game pieces, his expression
incredulous. “You knew Abraham Lincoln?”

“Uh-huh. He
was Svatura,” Ellie confirmed.

“
No way
!
What was his power?” Nate asked.

Griffin leaned
back linking his hands behind his head and answered, “A really subtle power of
persuasion. He just had to speak, and you could listen to him for hours and do
anything he asked willingly. Our tribe wasn’t thrilled that he went so public,
but ultimately that was his choice.”

Everyone sat
for a moment in stunned silence, just staring at them. “Well on that note…”
Alex stood and offered Ellie his hand. He pulled her up from her seat on the
couch and they headed toward their bedroom.